Because I am really interested in gardening, I do really interesting plants, not even always flowers. And because I have grown them, I really know them like friends. I paint everything from exotic orchids to rosehips growing wild in a hedge. They just have to speak to me.

The fascination of somebody with original creative gifts is something that's always drawn me. I get attached to them, but I can't call it being in love, because the words are so debased.

My life has really been about writing, though some think it's all about once having been in a ball dress and having an odd life and marrying all the time. But it's the writing that's always been the point.

I didn't go to university; I hardly went to school, but I grew up among people well versed in Henry James and Proust, and just felt this endless, total inadequacy.

Like many children of the rich and famous, Paris Hilton didn't always get to spend quality time with her parents, especially her mother. A socially ambitious young woman, Kathleen Elizabeth Avanzino Richards Hilton, who had married into the celebrated Hilton Hotel family, was often out and about.

I don't feel much pressure to fit in. I never have. I've always just wanted to do my thing. I have really good friends and good family, and if I don't fit in somewhere else, I fit in at home.

I know I haven't spent a lot of time with my children because my job takes me all over the world and takes me away from my children, but I've given them a good education and security. If anything happens to me, my children's future is well-secured. So I think I've done well as a father.

There are parents with wealth who just want their kids to be wealthy, and then there are other parents with money who want to teach their kids how they got it. That's what my dad was like.